


Irretrievably Entangled

by medusine



Series: Life at the Spy-Glass Inn [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Comedy, Domestic, Everybody's happy, M/M, Post S4, Special guest: Cat, background OT4 really, background Silver/Madi, past Thomas/Miranda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 22:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11769546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medusine/pseuds/medusine
Summary: Flint tries his hand at knitting. Thomas and Silver watch, and mock, and laugh.





	Irretrievably Entangled

**Author's Note:**

> This story stands alone, but it fits into the [Mending Bridges](http://archiveofourown.org/series/802410) series.
> 
> Prompt fill for [marinarasarah](http://marinarasarah.tumblr.com/post/160956870623/black-sails-prompt) on tumblr, extra inspiration provided by [this priceless pic](http://68.media.tumblr.com/26262943691529d8cdd0123102f4f2eb/tumblr_inline_oudvq3VUiC1s4i4ay_500.jpg).

It had been a bloody long day and Silver's back was killing him.

Some big merchant ship had come into Bristol and many of its sailors had wandered into the Spyglass Inn. Silver had done his best not to complain, but the strain of running around and staying on his feet behind the bar all day progressively took its toll. Madi had finally spotted him cringing as he bent over and sent him to sit down.

They'd made a small study next to the kitchen. It was supposedly for Madi's accounts, but since the room tended to be inhabited by the inn's resident bookworms, it had slowly grown into a small library with armchairs arranged around the fireplace.

Silver pushed the door open and stood gobsmacked for a moment. Flint was sitting there, a pair of knitting needles in his hands and a guilty look on his face, like a child caught doing something really naughty.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Well dinner's over and the dishes are done, so I'm whiling time away before we close up,” Flint answered, his cheeks turning slightly pink.

“That's not what I asked.” Silver gingerly took a seat by the fire and stretched his cramping shoulders.

“Well what does it look like I'm doing?” Flint snapped back, clutching his knitting closer to his chest. The wool was bright green, and looked more like a random tangle of yarn than anything else.

Silver was saved from having to answer by Thomas coming in with a pair of steaming cups. The cat – which wasn't allowed in the room in case it damaged the books – slid between Thomas' legs and shot under an armchair before it could be shooed out. Neither Flint nor Thomas seemed to notice, and Silver didn't much care right then.

“Oh James, not again,” Thomas said with an exaggerated sigh.

“Yes, again. Do you know how much mitts cost?”

“Surely not the price of your sanity?”

Flint scowled at him. Thomas handed Silver a cup of tea, and put one down beside Flint.

“Well at least with such a glowing green you can spare yourself the cost of a lantern.”

“It's Lincoln Green!” Flint protested.

“Really? I could have sworn I saw that exact colour in the gutter after a drunk disgorged his pea soup.”

The open-mouthed, wide-eyed affronted look on Flint's face was priceless. Silver was glad to be able to hide his amusement behind his teacup.

“Anyway _you_ 're not going to be wearing this, so kindly–” Flint snorted angrily as all his work slipped off the needles and into his lap. “Kindly fuck off.”

One nice thing about having Thomas around, Silver mused as he sipped his tea, was that he always spoke his mind. It was refreshing for Silver to watch Flint being teased mercilessly without having to suffer the consequences himself.

As Flint clumsily attempted to cast on, Silver noticed that he was conspicuously glancing at a book on his lap.

“Don't tell me you're learning from a handbook,” Silver said, trying to keep a straight face.

“No,” Flint growled back. “I learned with Miranda. This is just to refresh my memory.”

“What he's not telling you,” Thomas said while he perused the bookshelf, “is that Miranda used to despise needlework. Her knitwork was only surpassed in unsightliness by her cross-stitch. And believe me, her cross-stitch was deplorable.”

Silver stifled a chuckle, just as Flint glared daggers at both of them.

“All right, all right,” Thomas said with a placating grin. “Fucking off, now.” He pulled a book off the shelf and stopped by Silver on the way to the door, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“John,” he said solemnly. “I do trust that you'll protect James from himself, as you have always done.”

Silver felt a nervous smile coming on. Even though they'd come far since the early days of their reunion, this kind of joke still made him uncomfortable, as Thomas was likely aware, the bastard.

Thomas smiled, more kindly. “By that I mean, please make sure he doesn't poke an eye out with those needles.”

“I know where I'll shove them if you keep this up,” Flint muttered, half to himself, grappling with the yarn.

“My dear, considering their girth, you could barely call that foreplay.” With that, Thomas left, chuckling.

Silver shifted in his seat to make himself more comfortable. Flint ignored him, fiddling with stitches that were obviously too tight, clucking his tongue at the twisted yarn and snorting loudly every time he dropped a stitch. The sounds were quite soothing, and Silver felt the ache in his back slowly drain away.

Then a large tabby paw reached out from under Flint's seat and grabbed the bright green yarn. Flint didn't notice it, too busy counting stitches under his breath. Silver watched the cat play with the wool, marvelling at the domestic picture laid out before his eyes.

Flint sat by the fire, copper hair glinting in the soft light, his face deeply focused as he bent over his knitting. Beneath him a plump tabby tom played with a ball of yarn, holding it between its front paws, biting at it and kicking it with its hind legs. It could have been a Flemish painting.

When the cat rolled over with the ball of yarn still in its paws, Silver foresaw what was about to happen without being able to do anything to prevent it. All of Flint's knitting got pulled out of his hands, off his lap. The clatter of the needles on the stone floor startled the cat, who rushed away, entangled in yarn, dragging all of Flint's work and both needles behind him.

“Wha–! Fucking _bastard_!” Flint wailed indignantly, shooting up from his chair just as the cat disappeared under another armchair. Silver burst out laughing.

Flint looked down at Silver, face reddening with anger, a scowl deepening on his forehead, and Silver's laughter reached a hysterical pitch. The more Flint's eyes narrowed furiously, the harder Silver laughed.

“Sorry,” he gasped between giggles. “Sorry! It's just… you and… and the cat–”

“Oh, what's the point,” Flint groaned and flopped down into his armchair.

It took a while and a few deep breaths for Silver to recover from his giggling fit. Flint still looked dejected, as he always did when he was frustrated for not being immediately perfect at every single thing he tried.

“You do know that to knit good mitts you need at least three needles forming a circle, right?”

Flint looked up at him, mouth falling open. “I… really? I thought I could just sew parts together.”

“You could, and the seams might dig in and rub at your hands in all kinds of unpleasant ways by the end of the day.”

“How on earth would you know that?” Flint asked, forgetting to be sullen now that his curiosity was piqued.

“I know a lot of useful things.”

The cat chose this moment to shuffle out from under the chair, yarn twined around his paunchy middle and one of its back paws. He hopped comically forward, dragging the clinking needles behind him and looking terribly sorry for himself.

“Come here, you stupid motherfucker,” Flint told the cat in an exasperatedly fond tone, then lifted him onto his lap. Silver still marvelled at the contrast between Flint's harsh words and the gentleness he used to disentangle the cat from the yarn.

Flint carried the cat out once he was done, and closed the door after him. Then Silver felt the weight of Flint's full attention on him; that piercing gaze still made him squirm, sometimes.

“I suppose you aren't going to tell me how you learned to knit, then?”

Silver rolled his eyes. “As you said, mitts are expensive. They can also be sold at a pretty price, and,” he added, smirking, “knitting is so easy that even a child could do it.”

Flint just snorted and picked up the half-unravelled ball of yarn, carefully working out the tangles. Silver watched his hands, wondering how someone with such talent for making and undoing knots could be so terrible at knitting.

“Thomas is right,” Silver said after a while, “that's really not your colour.”

This earned him a glare, and Flint stubbornly continued winding the wool back into a nice regular ball.

“And mitts? Really ambitious as a first knitting venture. I'd try a scarf or a shawl.”

“Yes, I'd look very fetching in a bright green shawl,” Flint grumbled.

Silver smiled. He knew – and Flint knew that Silver knew – that Flint would rather freeze to death than waste his time on making clothing for himself. Silver also knew that, while Flint avoided bright colours like the plague, this shade of green would flatter Madi's complexion. And she would certainly welcome any warm clothing, considering how often she grumbled about the cold Bristol winters.

“Well?” Flint's sharp voice cut in, “are you going to show me how to knit this shawl, or are you just going to sit there grinning like an idiot?”

Silver shifted his seat closer to Flint's, so close that their arms and shoulders touched. He took up the needles, brushing his thumb along Flint's hand as he did so, and smiled when he saw Flint's irritation subside, leaving softness in its wake. As he gathered his materials, Silver felt Flint's palm rub between his shoulder blades, easing the tension that still lingered there.

Silver wondered when he'd stepped into a Flemish painting, but he certainly wasn't complaining.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to follow [my tumblr](http://medusinestories.tumblr.com) and yell with me about angsty pirates.


End file.
